CFP Board in the News

Are You Ready for Death? Resolve to Get Your Affairs in Order

Here’s something cheery to contemplate. Suppose tomorrow you’re hit by a bus/18-wheeler/SUV/exceptionally large bicycle. And die.

Are your affairs in order?

Where there’s a will …

You can probably come up with any number of reasons not to write your will. It sounds intimidating. It sounds expensive. Worst of all, you actually have to think about dying.

Then again, don’t you want to be the one who decides who’ll raise your (minor) children in your absence? Who’ll get your collection of old TV Guides? (Not to mention possessions that are actually worth something.)

“It irks me when people take the attitude of ‘I’ll be dead, so why should I care?’ ” says [CFP Board Ambassador] Dan Mathews, a [CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™] with Stepp & Rothwell Inc. in Overland Park and a member of the Financial Planning Association of Greater Kansas City.

But it’s irresponsible, he says, not to have a plan in place for your estate.

“You want people to remember you for the good things you did, not the mess you left,” Mathews says.